Sculpting

Sculpting

With Pyro completely boarded up in his room, Pete starts to get a bit lonely. He also gets a bit annoyed, because he can’t do anything with the pool: the Falkon Towers has been bit by the pool bug (explained in more detail in the Bugs Q&A section of the guide), meaning it’s stuck without a ladder or diving board. Pete unilaterally decides to move himself and his brother—Pyro is in no mood towel himself off after a shower, let alone talk about a life-altering decision—and needs to gain some money to head across town.

Pete quits his job as a mad scientist, then heads home. He goes to the rear tower, then heads into Buy Mode. We sort the thing by function, then the Entertainment sort and the Hobbies & Skills subsort. There, Pete buys a Pedestrian Sculpting Station, and sticks it in the rear tower. Sadly, that’s all that’s in there at the moment, but we’ll soon fill it with some, heh, “art.”

Pete has zero skill of course, so interacting with it just gives a “Practice With… | Clay,” which costs just a few bucks. Pete plays with the clay, and soon we get this…

Hm, not the best-looking masterpiece in the world. I bet Pete’s on his phone because he’s trying to arrange for the repo man to come by and discreetly take it before Pyro goes nuts. At least it’s not without some benefit: by the time it’s finished, Pete is up to Level 2 in sculpting. He goes ahead and registers as a self-employed sculptor, sells the statue for a mere $47, then calls it a night. Well, at least he got a profit, right?

The next day, because he’s at Level 2, Pete is able to sculpt a statue through a series of commands at the Sculpting Station. Conversely, he can just use the “Sculpt… | Clay” command, which basically produces a random and sometimes better item. Pete decides to roll the dice, and his next sculpture is a bit better, and he sells it for $53.

Pete hits Level 3 of Sculpting and earns the right to start sculpting with wood, which he does presently. As you may have guessed, sculpting with wood is more expensive initially, but provides a better profit. In Pete’s case, he spends $25 for wood (compared to $3 for clay), but nets $85 for his resulting end table… or rather, he would have, but he likes his ugly little table so much that keeps it in his room.

At Level 5, Pete is able to work with ice, and does so the next day. At this point, the sculptures are getting more complex, and are taking longer: his first ice sculpture takes over 12 hours. But still, it’s flippin’ awesome to watch. I mean, isn’t this the sweetest pic ever seen in any of our Sims guides…?

When Pete is done, the “sculpture” winds up being a sink… a working sink. I’m not sure of the intelligence of running water through a sink made of ice, but what the heck. Pete sticks it in his bathroom and keeps going.

At Level 6, Pete hits a major milestone: he can now create ice sculptures of other Sims. He flirts with the idea to make an ice sculpture of Aralia Rose just to upset Pyro, but Pete isn’t a mean or jerkface brother. So instead, Pete in fact commissions Pyro in ice using a “Sculpt Ice Sim… | Pyro Falkon” command, because if there is anything the Falkon Towers need, it’s more pretentiousness!

Oh yeah, that’s the stuff. Sadly, it won’t last forever—it will melt and leave a small puddle on the ground after a few days—but it’s cool while it lasts, no pun intended.

At Level 8, Pete is able to start sculpting in stone, which is the most expensive material but gives the most profit. So that makes it clay, wood, ice, and stone… but there is a fifth and sixth materials as well. We can’t do anything about the top material yet, but the fifth material takes some interaction to get. The next morning, Pete gets dressed early, then drives to the junkyard that we placed down in New Pyroville.

At the junkyard are several large piles of crap, each glowing with little gold lights. Pete interacts with the largest pile and selects the lone “Dig Through” command. There are no indicators other than Pete’s animation, but he collects some scrap metal now and then as he digs around. Digging through the junk cuts his Hygiene meter, and once it’s empty, he automatically stops. For the heck of it, I just keep Pete digging until his Hygiene meter is empty, and he winds up with 67 pieces of scrap! Quite a bit.

While he’s there, Pete looks around at the various objects in the junkyard. See, the junkyard is home to more than just scrap: there are actual objects there. The catch is, they’re all broken, so after you have to pay to replace them, but it will still be cheaper than buying a new one from Buy Mode. Pete spots a stereo, and snags that with a “Salvage” command, which puts it in the family inventory.

Pete heads home and dumps off his broken stereo in the rear tower, then interacts with it and uses the “Replace” command to start listening to some music while he works. With that done, he then starts using his collected scrap to make metal sculptures. Each sculpture costs a measly three units of scrap, meaning he can do eleven sculptures right now before heading back to the junkyard. Otherwise the sculptures are free to make (why pay money when you already own the materials?), and make a pretty decent amount of cash when sold. So Pete whips out his blowtorch to start working on the sculpture, and…

Yep, that’s Pete with his butt set on fire. Perhaps a smoke alarm or something would be good to have around. A Sim who is on his own can hop in a pool, bathtub, or any other water-based object to put himself out if need be, though Pyro decides to be a helpful brother here. Pyro extinguishes Pete, who gets back to work after a shower (and, apparently, a snack).

Pete then starts to work with stone, but he gets a nice surprise: the whole stone block winds up breaking, and in its place is a gemstone! Pete goes to get it cut, as he does with other gemstones he finds, such as when he breaks space rocks on his block breaker martial arts trainer. It doesn’t help with his sculptor self-profession, but it’s worth some extra cash.

At Sculpting Level 10, he can make topiary sculptures, the sixth and final material for his hobby. Topiary materials are pretty cheap, but the final product sells for just about as much as ice sculptures, making topiaries the highest profit ratio of all the sculptures, and therefore the choice material to rocket up the career track as quickly as possible.